Waiting.
Ocelot hated waiting. It had been the bane of his existence since he had been young- in his earlier years, he had been brash and impulsive and never one to think twice before bulling into a situation headlong. Even now, creeping closer and closer to his seventies with each graying hair, he still had the dexterity and speed of a much younger man, and could still flourish his guns better than anyone he had ever met.
Because of this disdain for anything other than a breakneck pace through daily life, Ocelot rarely slept. And now, he was the only one awake in the quiet room. FoxHound had been assembled under orders for vaccinations against some interesting little virus they may have been exposed to on their last outing. Several of them had already drifted away, bored of waiting for the over-booked Dr. Naomi Hunter, in search of something more titillating than the hum of the ventilation ducts.
In fact, most of them were gone, leaving only the commander and Ocelot himself. Truth be told, now that he wasn't infused with painkillers and adrenaline, the bones in his knees and hips were starting to ache, and wandering the chilled halls didn't seem particularly appealing.
And so his occupation became a close scrutiny of his commander. My, my but how he looked of his "father". Ocelot had often wondered if that were an applicable term to this warped family tree, and had as many times decided that any conventional term relegated to either of the two men were far out of bounds. In that they completely had no use, rather than any sense of appropriateness.
He shifted his head, gray hair drifting to rest below his shoulders again. The unit had come in and sat unconsciously in combat order, with Mantis and Ocelot closest to Liquid, while Wolf and Octopus sat in the middle, shielded by the bulk of Raven. Now, diagonal to Liquid, Ocelot reflected that there was a startling lack of space between the two. He never noticed it while on a mission, since being deployed was another matter entirely. No one thought about their seat mate when they were concentrating on ingress and egress, strategy and what have you. Here, with no greater purpose keeping the smaller human tics at bay, he felt strangely like an observer.
Liquid had eventually ended up in an extremely arrogant sprawl, as if defying the possibility that the position left him open for an attack. His right knee and part of his shin were a warm pressure against Ocelot's own leg, feeling of bone and hard muscle. The fabric of the shirt over the Boss's chest stretched taut as he took in a deep, slow breath. Ocelot noted with interest the faint outline of Liquid's nipples were visible. Apparently he wasn't particularly warm, either.
A frisson rippled across him, sending burning tendrils down his stomach and coiling against his loins. Interesting; that hadn't happened for a while. He hoped to God that Mantis hadn't inadvertently caught that wave of animal lust, either. The last thing he needed was more fodder for the mind-reader.
He took a moment to blank his mind and draw in a deep, artificially-chilled lungful of air. He allowed himself a wry smile. You're getting a little too old for this, Ocelot. Simmer down.
One of his hands drifted forward, across the half-foot of space, before he was able to stop it. Not that he really felt compelled to stop it, anyway. He hesitated a few inches from the gold-dusted pink skin, his fingers curling in unwillingness to break the Boss's sleep. Actually, he was surprised that Liquid hadn't woken yet, considering Ocelot had nothing better to do for the past thirty minutes than bore proverbial holes into his commander's supine figure. Usually Liquid, hyper alert at the most mundane of times, would be awake and scanning for what was scouting him within minutes, seconds even.
He wondered if Wolf had slipped the blond behemoth Diazepam from her personal stash. He wouldn't put it past her. Or perhaps Liquid thought himself in company of people he trusted implicitly and was therefore distant from threat; able, for one of the very few times, to let down his guard. Hence the lordly sprawl, after all.
If only he knew. Not that Ocelot was going to do anything about it; no, not unless ordered.
That thought made his mind withdraw from the resemblance between Liquid and his genetic predecessor. Liquid seemed more, well, like Liquid now, and not some Snake thrown through a looking glass. He could pick out the dissimilarities- Liquid's face was almost pugnacious, fleshier than Big Boss's. Liquid had the bulk of a Saxon, where his "father" had hints of the delicacy of the Orient.
But now he was just fruitlessly making check lists. Adamska decisively withdrew his hand, leaning back in his seat, the cloth and springs giving muffled creaks beneath his weight.
A lighter, ragged mark below Liquid's bare pectoral, raised above the smooth skin, caught Ocelot's eye. And with that sighting of the not-so-elusive scars, they seemed to be everywhere. Peppering the man's body like some kind of bizarre patchwork.
He knew those marks. He had employed methods that would inflict them often enough, after all. The scars dotting his commander had been executed with some faire skill, he thought, letting his head fall to the side to view them better. On the tail of that, he wondered if they still bothered him. Ached in the cold, throbbed in the heat. Of course he wouldn't ask; Liquid didn't talk about his time being tortured in the Middle East. It was one of the very few forbidden topics, numbering among his family matters. He spoke of the Middle East easily enough, but almost never about personal specifics there.
Which was interesting, if counterproductive, given Liquid's personality. He never was one to suppress or bottle things up, generally comfortable with unleashing a barrage of verbal rebuke and then moving on. Very different from-
Well. That didn't matter. Liquid was Liquid.
The door, that he had stupidly left his back to, opened, and Ocelot turned to catch the newcomer. The slim, olive complexioned woman withdrew from the suddenness of movement, reflexively clutching the clipboard to her chest, brown eyes wide. Ocelot favored her with a grin, and nodded. "Dr. Hunter. We've been expecting you."
"Quite." She arched an eyebrow, the evenness in her voice obviously carefully controlled. Ocelot threw a glance back over his shoulder to see that Liquid had cracked his eyes to glare unfocusedly at the young scientist, blue rimmed with red. He sat forward, bringing the broad, calloused hands to his face to rub sleep out of his eyes. "Dr. Hunter. A pleasure you could find the time to meet with us."
Even from across the room he could see the young scientist who had entirely too much backbone bristle. "Yes, well, next time I'll have a few beds installed." This provoked a smirk from Liquid, who stood. "Shall we, then?"
She angled herself, gesturing to the hallway where a rush of cool air was filtering from. Ocelot regarded it with distaste, and then trained his attention to his Boss, who was stepping for the door. He gave a brief smile at the broad hips that were squarely in his vision, thinking child-bearing hips and how unlike they were to-
Well.
Ocelot stood, shaking off the sudden and rather uncharacteristic bout of nostalgia, and moved to follow his commander.